Friday, September 15, 2006

"If Ikea made nanotech laboratories, this is what they would look like," reports the Chemistry World blog in a teaser to the publication's planned feature on the new Molecular Foundry in Berkeley later this year.

"Bare wood and beige carpets" contradict the "foundry" image that brought anti-nanotech protesters out to the construction site during the past couple of years. No, this is not some nanotech update to a Diego Rivera mural of an industrial plant, where exploited workers and unsuspecting townspeople are breathing in nanofumes belched from nanosmokestacks.

This is a new kind of multidisciplinary foundry of the mind, where scientists from many disciplines now find their work converging on the nanoscale. I can't wait to find out what comes out on the other side of the assembly line.